Many apologies but it is late here in England and I am too tired to spend hours trawling through our archive with a view to digging out all the previous postings about the link between welfare and terrorism. However, I do distinctly recall that the general theme was that it is far easier to recruit young men for terror attacks and guerilla wars when they are poor and under-utilised recipients of state largesse.
Now I am only too aware of the profound mischief and hazard produced by state serfdom but if this report in the US News about American Jihadis is anything to go by, then perhaps the phenomenon needs further examination (or, at least, revisiting):
“Fifteen thousand feet high in Kashmir and armed with a Kalashnikov–that was not how friends thought Jibreel al-Amreekee would end up. All of 19, the restless kid from Atlanta had grown up in a wealthy family attending Ebenezer Baptist Church, the home pulpit of Martin Luther King Jr. A soft-spoken youth with long dreadlocks, al-Amreekee had a passion for sky diving and reading books on the world’s religions.”
Clearly this young man (along with several others described in the article) was not the product of a broken home, a deprived slum or welfare benefits. It follows, then, that the welfare-terrorism link is rather too glib. Rich kids go crazy as well.
[Link courtesy of Pejman Pundit ]
